Years Gone By
by countrybutterfly
Summary: Fish wasn't ready to be her father, but that didn't mean he wasn't there for her. One-shot


One year after the snow storm, a small white teddy bear is place on the door step of the apartment partially inhabited by Schuyler Joplin and Sierra Rose who is celebrating her first birthday. It is Rachel who discovers the birthday gift on her way to work that morning. She never noticed the quiet police officer who managed to make it around the corner just before she looks around for signs of who left the gift.

For Sierra's second birthday he leaves a blue curly-haired rabbit. He thinks the act has gone unnoticed until he makes it back around the corner to find his boyfriend leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Kyle wants to know why Fish does this. Fish shrugs, just something he feels he needs to do. They argue for another moment before Fish once again pleads for ignorance, arguing that he doesn't want to confuse the toddler or uproot her from the home she knows. The med students sees hope for eventually finding out the truth. It is also in the second year that Officer Fish aroused the curiosity of his roommates with his insistence of not leaving the building when they break the news they will be moving away to take advantage of an opportunity for Leyla. Instead Kyle moves in, but no one asks what will become of the other two rooms.

When Sierra Rose is led out of her home by Schuyler Joplin to visit her Aunt Gigi on her third birthday she finds a stuffed giraffe wrapped in a bright pink bow. Later that night Kyle wonders out loud if maybe they should venture in a gift outside of the stuffed animal kingdom. Oliver ponders this as well until he sees the young girl in Buenos Dias the giraffe and a familiar blue rabbit at her side. She receives a blue stuffed elephant for her fourth birthday and a curious Schuyler mentions the mysterious birthday gifts out loud while working at the hospital in the ear shot of fellow doctor Kyle Lewis.

Kyle is allowed to pick out the gift for the little girl's fifth present and ends up sleeping in the spare bedroom for a week because of it. He had picked out a stuff animal, more to the point he had picked out a stuffed fish. He had not meant anything of it, but Oliver's paranoia took a couple of fights to silence. Paranoia, it turned out that probably shouldn't have been so easily dismissed. When Oliver went to deliver the pink unicorn he had picked out for the sixth anniversary of Sierra's birth, he was greeted by a determined, yet sleep deprived Schuyler. When asked point blank why he did it, Oliver stuttered, in true Fish style that it was his being sentimental, maybe a little guilty over what had happened that night, not being able to save Stacey Morasco. And as Oliver Fish is notorious through out Llanview for being the dependable, honest, and socially awkward police officer with a heart of gold Joplin buys it instantly. He doesn't question the next year;s arrival of a purple monkey. And when the stuffed Calico cat appears on his doorstep for the seventh birthday he respectful doesn't tell the blonde hair little girl that her favorite police officer who visit her school every once and a while is the same one who gives her these secret birthday presents. It is on one of the Llanview PD's school visits, shortly after dropping off the eighth present of a stuff lion, Fish watches as the the little girl is teased ruthlessly by one of her fellow classmates and shoved to ground. He is grateful for the moment he could help her pick herself off the ground, and make her smile with a bad joke.

Sierra's ninth birthday is a little more challenging. Not only is there now a drive involved to deliver the fluffy panda bear, but he also greeted by Kim who had arrived to deliver her gift. It is the first of many arguments that the two have over the year, culminating in one which involved Fish uncharacteristically raising his voice demanding she tell him the truth. In not so many words she doesn't directly answer the question, but she doesn't argue with him or his boyfriend anymore. In fact, Kim steers clear of the pair altogether. Kyle believed this would be the turning point, which it was, just not the way he had thought it would. Oliver, instead breaks down into tears over the fact that it is too late, too late to fight for the little girl. But in the midst of his tears he makes a confession to Kyle, that he doesn't want to miss being a parent altogether.

Oliver Fish drops the brightly colored inanimate bird on the doorstep for the now ten year old and decides that it was not the best year for a cool stuffed animal. He also once again ponders if the blonde hair girl even enjoys these gifts at her age. It is on the way back that he gets the call from his partner that their surrogate is indeed pregnant. Nine months later he is the father to a little boy who will get to know Oliver as his father.

Gigi decides to surprise her niece by having her stay with her, Rex and Shane the night before her eleventh birthday. She is a little thrown by the slight disappointment in Sierra, but it disappears when they arrive at the ice skating rink Schuyler rented for her birthday. Gigi doesn't pay much attention to the gifts, but wonders momentarily which of the other kids gave her niece a plush paisley horse.

Sierra Rose turned twelve being rescued from a dark mice-infested cellar by the familiar dirty blonde police officer. She had watched as Officer Fish had angrily punched the slime who had kidnapped her and held her hostage for nearly two weeks. He had carried her out when the ambulance arrived and assured her everything was finally okay. By her request he stayed with her until that made it to the hospital and to her awaiting doctor-dad. She woke up later that day in the hospital with a ribbon wrapped dove to add to her collection of animals.

The seahorse that she found on her thirteenth birthday was tossed into a corner without much thought. Who ever was sending them was clearly not aware that she was a teenager. And neither did her dad who once again wanted to have some kind of party with the dorks from her class. Sierra ditched the party to go to some high school party she had been invited to by a guy who had flirted with her at the movie theatre. She had been striving to forget the memory of her birthday the year before, but all her usual tactics were having no effect. The booze that had illegally found its way to the party seemed her best option, but before she could try the party was interrupted by the Llanview PD, including one Officer Fish. She rolled her eyes as the man nearly lost his cool lecturing her about the perils of high school boys and alcohol. He let something slip about her mother and she instantly paid attention. It took a few attempts before he confessed that he had known Stacey Morasco, that he had been on the mountain the night she had died. He emphasized how much her mother had loved her. When she was dropped off by her dad, she launched into a full apology before he could say anything.

Oliver Fish nearly got caught by Sierra Rose on the morning of her fourteenth birthday. Correction, he had been caught as she made her way to the bus stop, but he covered with his early morning shift leaving him near the neighborhood. He told her he was going to ask her or Schuyler if she would be willing to be the baby sitter for the now four year old Ryan and one year old Hannah when he and Kyle needed her. She never noticed that after she had turned the corner he had left the bag holding her annual gift, a white tiger.

As she became the constant baby sitter of the Lewis-Fish household over the years she failed to noticed the stuffed brown rabbit she received on her fifteenth, the seagull that had arrived in the mailbox for her sixteenth, or the orangutan that had caused her to laugh when her boyfriend had tried to open one her birthday presents as she turned seventeen. Her curiosity nearly got the best of her on her eighteenth. Fish had found her sitting on the front steps when he casually drove through. And she nearly got into a fight with her dad when he brought the stuffed octopus. Demanding to know who would keep giving her these gifts all these year and not want to be known. After asking for a brief second if her mother was really dead, she retracted the statement, and though she later retrieved the neon eight legged creature from the trash can she told Schuyler firmly that she didn't want anything else from this mysterious gift giver.

Despite be told by Schuyler to stop sending gifts and to stop feeling guilty about Stacey dying, Fish sent the orca whale to the address that Kyle had reluctantly gotten from Joplin under the guise that Hannah wanted to send her favorite babysitter in college. He did the same with dolphin for her twentieth. It was in that twentieth year Schuyler Joplin demanded the truth. He had stormed at Kyle at the beginning of a shift, and Kyle admitted the suspicions that had been plagued Oliver for the last twenty years. Unwilling to believe that his daughter, the one he had lost Gigi over, the one that wasn't Rex's…wasn't his either. Kim argued back as she always did when he confronted her. She asked him if it even mattered, Fish had never spoken up, which as far as Schuyler knew was the truth. If it mattered who had donated the sperm after he had given time, and love for twenty years. He told himself it didn't matter.

When she opened her mailbox on her twenty-first birthday Sierra found it was empty. It was the next day as well. Confused, she wondered if the presents had finally ceased. It had been what she had wanted, after all they were only stuffed animals. Maybe whoever it had been had finally given up, and she was surprised at how much that hurt. Instead she looked to the internet to check on the news from her home town, maybe there had been a huge storm that had prevented mail from getting out. There on the first result was her answer. She sat in shock at the headline, knowing it probably explained everything. The article declared that local Llanview hero Oliver Fish had been shot in the line of duty a week ago and had been in critical condition since. No questions asked she took the day off from classes and drove straight to the hospital. When she arrived at the hospital she found a tear stained Hannah and Ryan being comforted by their other father, who didn't seemed to surprised to see Sierra in Llanview. He filled her in on Oliver's condition, that the night would be the deciding point on if he would make it or not. She heard her name and turned to be embraced by her dad. Sierra quickly explained what she was doing there, and asked if she could see him. There was a reluctant nod, he stopped her only to take the empty coffee cup that had helped her ride, off her hands. Between the beeps and slow breathing she asked if he had sent her all those birthday gifts, and why, and most importantly she wanted to thank him. Later that night, after she had heard the volume of an exchange between Oliver's husband and her dad, she had been escorted to the hospital cafeteria and was told the truth by the two men.

When Oliver Fish woke up he was greeted by a white teddy bear. He squinted his eyes, trying to figure out why the animal looked familiar. The door opened and he smiled as Kyle came in the room. Kyle led him through a round standard questions before the pair shared a quiet moment before Oliver made the request to see his kids. After planting a kiss on Oliver's forehead, Kyle did as he was asked. Hannah bolted to her father's side followed by a more cautious Ryan. Confusion spread across his face as he saw the third figure hanging back just inside the door. She nodded, and he could feel the tears well up, he reached out with his free hand. Sierra Rose takes it with only a nano second of hesitation, in her mind she knows this changes nothing but everything. Still, she allows herself to be pulled against his chest, here head nearly missing the younger boy, her brother's head when Oliver Fish pulls all three of his kids close to him.

* * *

So this is a one-shot I decided to write. My stories are usually dialogue heavy, so I wanted to challenge myself to write something with no dialogue. I hope you enjoyed. Would love to hear what you think of it.

I do not own One Life to Live or its characters (if I did there would be loads more Kish and less Mitch Laurence)


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